In the Papers

8th November 1999

DAILY TELEGRAPH

First thing this morning (Saturday 6th November) an Australian friend called me from Tanawha in Queensland to tell me with some glee that Australia had just rejected the republic. "Strange to think that we in Oz have just voted to keep the Queen when you've just ditched the House of Lords" he remarked.

Even stranger, I think, that such a momentous change to the British constitution could have transpired without the need for a referendum as in Australia. When will Britons awake to irreparable damage Blair is causing to our constitution? This week's Economist's MORI poll confirmed the growing fragmentation of the United Kingdom. This, combined with his dangerous fixation with the European Union, could now so easily lead to Scotland seeking independence within the E.U. after the next Scottish Parliamentary elections.

It is as if our nation is sleep walking into an unknown future lulled by temporary economic stability and the hypnotic words of spin. Even though the MORI poll reveals that 82% of the public know that the Government sets out to mislead, no alarm bells yet ring.

Yet headteachers, general practitioners, chief constables and other professionals in public service are now all suffering as Labour shifts power away from the experts in situ to bureaucracies who certainly do not know better. The Government's power of patronage has kept many professionals silent though some brave and responsible individuals have spoken up. In so many areas now, the hopeful song "Things can only get better" has shown itself to be just wishful thinking. In 30 months they have got worse.